{"id":10581,"date":"2012-10-05T09:33:17","date_gmt":"2012-10-05T16:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/?p=10581"},"modified":"2012-10-05T09:34:40","modified_gmt":"2012-10-05T16:34:40","slug":"the-senate-races-again-more-interesting-than-the-presidential-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/2012\/10\/05\/the-senate-races-again-more-interesting-than-the-presidential-race\/","title":{"rendered":"The Senate races again. More interesting than the presidential race"},"content":{"rendered":"
Tennessee<\/a>:<\/strong>
\nDemocratic U.S. Senate nominee Mark Clayton, in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, calls for an investigation into whether state Democratic Chairman Chip Forrester “and other Tennessee Democratic Party bosses” violated the federal Voting Rights Act by disavowing his win in the Aug. 2 primary.<\/em>
\nThe letter suggests that, since many minority voters supported Clayton in the primary, the impact of their votes was compromised by the disavowal of Clayton as the party nominee, which Forrester has said was based on Clayton’s membership in an “anti-gay hate group” and other “extremist views.”<\/em>
\nThe Democratic nominee was joined in signing the letter by Bishop Felton M. Smith, senior pastor of New Covenant Fellowship Church of God in Christ in Nashville, according to an email from Clayton. According to Internet media reports, Smith previously joined a group of black ministers opposing re-election of President Obama because of his support for same-sex marriage<\/em>.<\/div>\n
Mark Clayton is full of crap here.\u00c2\u00a0 The political party organizations can behave as they will to their candidates.\u00c2\u00a0 But he does have one salient point.\u00c2\u00a0 The next Democratic candidate who wins statewide, or even does reasonably well statewide, will — functionally speaking — be positioned right where Mark Clayton is on social issues.\u00c2\u00a0 The difference might be rhetorical — though that is difference enough in voting.\u00c2\u00a0 But even there, he just slides right next to someone like Republican Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — “Lesbian epidemic in Southeast Oklahoma bathrooms”.<\/div>\n
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The thing I watch in a Senate race like this one… the election map.\u00c2\u00a0 Will it deviate from Partisan norm?\u00c2\u00a0 The answer, if past indications are predicative, is “no”.\u00c2\u00a0 Bob Kelleher’s performance — the perenail candidate who won Montana’s Republican Senate nomination and was “more socialist than the alleged Socialist in the Senate” — had a map that was a pale shadow of the top ticket result — against “corporate Democrat” Max Baucus.\u00c2\u00a0 The same was true of the Bircher Democrat Bob Conley who won the South Carolina Democratic nomination against the next Tea Party target Lindsey Graham.<\/div>\n
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Missouri.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong> The New Republic offers a fluffer-ish piece on Claire McCaskill’s strategy<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not without insight, though.\u00c2\u00a0 It asks the provocative question of whether she’s blowing it, and answers “no”.\u00c2\u00a0 Because even as her [hand-picked] opponenty made an extreme and biologically nonsensical comment about Abortion — she cannot be identified as an Abortion crusader.\u00c2\u00a0 So there she is, campaigning as “#50” in the National Journal rankings.\u00c2\u00a0 A one-dimensional tracking that will throw away any Kucinich — Paul alliance.\u00c2\u00a0 The New Republic article only hints around the edges of the trouble with this strategy — it would be one thing if she can pioint to some big compromise she brokered, but mostly we just end up with someone not sticking her neck out, staking some oppositional positions, and cruising out the status quo.\u00c2\u00a0 But hey!\u00c2\u00a0 She’s not extreme!<\/div>\n
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North Dakota.<\/strong> So, this New York Times article on Democratic candidate Heidi Heitkamp’s “nice act” is getting this quote out there<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty likable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mr. Berg said with a shrug. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The issue is not about a personality contest. This whole thing kind of boils down to, do you want someone who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to fight against President Obama.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Yeah, speak for your opponent.\u00c2\u00a0 There is a gender dynamic at play here, and I can’t help but be reminded of Todd Akin’s quote on McCaskill — that McCaskill was more “lady-like” in her 2006 campaign.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether true or not, and I can easily imagine that was part of McCaskill’s strategy in 2006 where in 2012 she is by nature running a more negative campaign — Heidi Heitkamp is in the same position and if she wins, her re-election campaign in 2018 would necessarily be more negative.<\/div>\n
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Montana.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong> So here’s Jon Tester.\u00c2\u00a0 He is turning out the base with his association with 90s era Seattle rock bands — he was Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam fame’s music teacher in the small town of Big Sandy. And so they play for him<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 And we get this while we’re at it<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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Maybe\u00c2\u00a0Jon Tester\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0supporters on the\u00c2\u00a0University of Montana\u00c2\u00a0campus inMissoula Sunday\u00c2\u00a0afternoon grew confused, thinking rock group\u00c2\u00a0Drowning Pool\u00c2\u00a0would play a concert for the senator later that night.<\/em><\/div>\n
That group\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s signature track \u00e2\u20ac\u201d\u00c2\u00a0Let the bodies hit the floor\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201d most accurately describes what happened to a Republican tracker just prior to a Tester midday rally Sunday.<\/em><\/div>\n
Just a few weeks after Republican Senate challenger\u00c2\u00a0Denny Rehberg\u00c2\u00a0delivered a one-fingered salute to a Democratic tracker\u00c2\u00a0in\u00c2\u00a0Washington, D.C., a GOP tracker claimed Tester supporters shoved him to the ground during a rally with\u00c2\u00a0Pearl Jam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0Jeff Ament.<\/em><\/div>\n
To be sure, the tracker, a campaign lackey given a cheap video camera, was asserting a very aggressive front, appearing to bump into the small armada of Tester campaign workers who circled Tester and Ament as they shuffled to the rally stage<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Drowing Pool?\u00c2\u00a0 Wait.\u00c2\u00a0 Is Puddles of Mud going to put in an appearance?
\nHaving fired up the base, Jon Tester can now make his pitch to the general electorate and swing vote in the state, and … emphasize beef.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong> The big debate performances for the one Republican trying to run as “#5o” presents two moments of note.\u00c2\u00a0 One was a killer for Scott Brown, he flummoxed on the question of fravorite Supreme Court Justice and basically ended up saying that he likes them all<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 And Elizabeth Warren laughed.\u00c2\u00a0 The second item, after this Scott Brown almost certainly rehearsed and planned — “I’m not a student in your classroom<\/a>.”\u00c2\u00a0 It’s to highlight Warren as an elitist.\u00c2\u00a0 But it didn’t quite have the punch Scott Brown needs, I’m afraid — he failed to get in the fact that he drives a pick-up truck.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Nebraska<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve Martin endorses Bob Kerrey<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Cool.\u00c2\u00a0 Since this election is so far gone for Kerrey, he might as well have fun with it.<\/div>\n
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Generally speaking, the Senate picture looks good for the Democrats.\u00c2\u00a0 States like Wisconsin<\/a> the Republicans can’t gain traction, states like Arizona the Democrats are picking up steam<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 But, I suppose, the supposed fall-out of Obama’s poor debate will weigh things down — until everyone forgets about it which seems to have happened today with Obama now touting a good jobs report with the world moving forward and the Democrats ceasing to panic as much — Mondale won the first debate against Reagan, after all.\u00c2\u00a0 Interesting race dynamics down-ticket… depends a lot on how things go up-ticket… conventional wisdom is Romney back in it and conventional wisdom will probably fade.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tennessee: Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Mark Clayton, in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, calls for an investigation into whether state Democratic Chairman Chip Forrester “and other Tennessee Democratic Party bosses” violated the federal Voting Rights Act by disavowing his win in the Aug. 2 primary. The letter suggests that, since many minority […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10581"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10594,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10581\/revisions\/10594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.struat.com\/election\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}